Niagara Falls 



1834 to get some way behind the sheets of two of these cataracts, the 

 Crescent and Central Falls. The passage behind the latter 

 we owe to Mr. Ingraham, who induced the owner to cut a path 

 in the rock, about midway in the bank. If the sight here is not 

 so full of terror as behind the sheet of the Crescent, you have, at 

 least, a better opportunity of studying the grace of these leaping 

 waters, when the moving crystal arch descends before your eyes, 

 with such a steadiness and continuance, that I, who never was 

 giddy in my life, felt a powerful effect, when I looked up and 

 followed, with my eye, the rushing arch in its whole course down ; 

 it was a sensation as if I were powerfully drawn after; and, 

 indeed, I would not advise any one, who is liable to giddiness, to 

 try this particular experiment. 



It was, I own with jealous feelings I lately read, that Mr. 

 Ingraham has succeeded in getting behind this sheet from below. 

 He had long foreseen that it would be practicable to penetrate 

 behind this fall. . . . He was the first who insisted upon its 

 possibility, and the first who attempted it, and if he was not 

 actually the first who succeeded in the attempt, it was owing 

 merely to a temporary absence from Niagara. 



When I had the good fortune of meeting Mr. Ingraham at 

 Niagara, we went together in a boat to the foot of the Central 

 Fall, and he made an attempt then to penetrate behind the sheet, 

 while our boat was in great danger of being dashed to pieces 

 against the rocks, the current here driving violently toward the 

 shore, owing to the immense mass of water which falls from the 

 centre of Crescent Fall into the depth, and is then forced vio- 

 lently up in the middle of the stream, by the pressure of succeed- 

 ing volumes of water. At that time he was not successful. 



Almost all travellers go behind the sheet of the Crescent Fall, 

 at its western end. The works which you have read have 

 already informed you, that, for the first time you enter, a guide 

 is necessary to lead you through the violent blasts. Most people 

 will always require one. The spot where the path ends is called 

 Termination Rock, and is above a hundred and fifty feet from 



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